Chappy Trails: Tornado Up Close and Personal

As I drank my morning tea and caught up on friends' blogs, Bobbie Chapman's post gave me chills: her brother's account of living through the recent tornados.  I'm linking here to his account of the recent events.  It is a riveting story.

Chappy Trails: Tornado Up Close and Personal

I’VE LOST TRACK OF THE DAYS!

It’s been over a week since we left Paws and Hooves ranch – where has the time gone?  We whiled it away on the Mexico border, at Turquoise Valley Golf and RV Park (click here to read our review and see photos) in Naco, AZ, 5 miles south of Bisbee.  I was exceptionally lazy… what the heck did I manage to get done?  Walked through Bisbee to see what had changed since our last visit; bought myself a new pair of Ariat boots for hiking, this time with a thicker, knobbier sole for more protection on the rocky trails of Arizona; went for a hike with Odel at Fairbank, an interesting ghost town not far from Tombstone.  Hung around inside, hiding from the wind.

Odel, on the other hand, was busy.  Turquoise Valley golf course, Arizona’s oldest, is just across the street from their RV park.  When Odel wasn’t actually playing golf (did he play two or three times in five days?) , he was over on the putting green or practicing his chipping.  Mostly this was for the fun of the game… but with a tee time scheduled on Friday with our friend Alex, shaving a few strokes off his score might have been in the back of his mind.  :)

It’s been a couple of years since we were in Bisbee, and we’ve seen changes.  The biggest?  Activity around the mine tailings.  Mine tailings in Bisbee would be considered hills or even mountains in some areas – huge heaps of rock removed from both the deep, deep Lavender pit mine and the underground Queen mine.  According to the guide on the new Bisbee Trolley Tour ($6 per adult for an entertaining and educational tour of Old Bisbee on a trolley), the tailings are being reworked to reclaim minerals using newer, more cost effective technology. 

And big news about the Bisbee Breakfast Club:  They are going to be open Friday nights, serving burgers!  I had recently noticed that the BBC opened in Tucson (on Ina Road), and I remember that the BBC had been for sale the last time we were in town, so I asked our waitress about it while we enjoyed breakfast before our hike.  The scoop?  the BBC changed hands about a year ago, expanded by adding the Tucson location, and will experiment with the Friday night opening.  The food and service at the Bisbee location is as good as always, with the same generous portions.  I wish them all the best with their expansion plans.

While Alex and Odel played golf on a very windy Friday, Ellen and I explored Bisbee.  Alex and Ellen have not visited here before, so we began with the new trolley tour.  The highly recognizable trolley is based at the main parking lot near the Copper Queen Hotel at the foot of Brewery Gulch, and I recommend it if you’d like an entertaining overview of the history of Bisbee and its buildings. 

After our 50 minute trolley tour, we wandered through town.  I noticed the usual ebb and flow of shops, some gone, others changed hands (the new-ish owner of Chocolate plans to stay open 10 months of the year, rather than 4-5), and a few new (a tea shop – YAY!).

Odel and I had been longing for the Italian food at Rosa’s Little Italy and the stars aligned for us.  Rosa’s is open only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and reservations are a must.  Alex and Ellen were arriving on Thursday, while Odel and I were departing on Saturday… so I called a week ahead for a reservation on Friday night.  After warning Alex and Ellen not to snack before dinner, we all met at Rosa’s at 6:30, each couple toting a bottle of wine – BYO here, with no corkage fee.  A delicious meal with wonderful friends… it was the perfect way to end our short stay in Bisbee.

LAST DAYS AT THE RANCH: DIARY OF A WORK DAY

Since we, Ron, and Rosanna arrived on the ranch Wednesday night, it has been transformed.  The work crew is composed of six – five seniors (Rosanna, me, Odel, and Art and Suzan, the RV’ers who have been property sitting for the past month), and 30-year old Ron.  What a congenial group!  The energy and good humor of everyone in the group has made this tough project rewarding and fun – I sort of imagine this is how pioneers or homesteaders felt out on the range or prairie, everyone bringing their strengths to the effort, then sitting around swapping stories at night. 

On Thursday, after burying Farah the sheep, we all started sorting and hauling,  There was way too much “stuff” to get a clear picture of the scope of the effort, so we just started filling bags and boxes: stuff yet to move to California; books to be donated to the local library (boxes and boxes!); useful stuff to give to Gene, who runs the local flea market; stuff that was being sold or given to friends or neighbors; and broken or otherwise useless stuff to go to the local dump (a BIG category). 

Friday was more of the same: refrigerators and deep freezers were emptied and defrosted; shelves were emptied; cupboards were cleaned out; piles were sorted, pickups were loaded, and goods were hauled off.  A friend of Rosanna’s arrived with a trailer to carry away furniture and the piano, and we began to see real progress.  By the end of the day Friday, sitting at the dinner table in Art and Suzan’s RV, we made a plan for Saturday – beginning with breakfast, to use up the eggs in Rosanna’s refrigerator!  I put some of the pinto beans we found in the barn freezer in the crockpot overnight, and we all agreed on breakfast at 8:30 am Saturday.

Loading up after breakfast.	Odel with a load for the dump.

What an excellent beginning to the day!  We enjoyed scrambled eggs, pinto beans, salsa, avocado and freshly cooked tortillas sitting in the morning sun. It was so much fun that we settled on an early (4 pm) dinner so we could dine outside again. Then we got back to the business of packing, hauling and cleaning. We filled one pickup with trash for the dump, and Odel and Ron took off for Elfrieda.

Art and Suzan ready to head to Gene’s.	Ron almost lost a thumb to this cage!

Suzan and Art’s pickup was loaded for a trip to Gene’s flea market; they took off as Odel and Ron came home with a load of hay for the four remaining farm animals.  Once they unloaded the hay, we filled the pickup with another load for Gene and away went the guys. 

Rosanna and I just kept loading and sorting bags and boxes; every so often, I took a break to work on the dish (Southwest Cornbread Pudding) I was putting into the crockpot for dinner.  Just as I finished up in the kitchen, Rosanna knocked on the door saying I had to “come and look”.   This is what I saw – and I’m posting this photo for Donna, for Sydney and Frank, for Auntie Carol, for Joy and Greg, all the people who know what the barn used to look like (borderline hoarders)! 

By the time all the trucks arrived back at the ranch (early afternoon), Rosanna and I were taking a break in the sunshine, and soon our four co-workers joined us for iced tea and beer.  Then it was back to work, but relaxed… a little work here, a little there.  We cleaned up an old table from the barn and set it with a tablecloth and some of Rosanna’s old dishes and wine glasses, then converged with food, wine, and good appetites. 

A toast to the ranch!  A toast to the workers!  A toast to a great day!

The old barn table cleaned up pretty well!	Another good meal with good folks.